This invention relates to automobile cooling systems and, more particularly, to a system for cooling the passenger compartment of an automobile without operating the automobile's engine.
As is well known, an automobile parked in the sun with its windows closed will experience a greenhouse effect, i.e., the interior of the automobile will become extremely hot. With an outside air temperature of 80-90 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature in the passenger compartment of an automobile can soar as high as 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Nevertheless, there are regularly documented reports of animals and children being severely injured by being left unattended in closed and locked parked automobiles. Of less significance is damage to temperature sensitive materials such as tape cassettes and plastic components of the automobile per se.
Most cooling systems for passenger automobiles have been designed to use air conditioning systems of the type which require the vehicle engine to be operating while the cooling system operates. Recently, U.S. Pat. No. 3,943,726 has disclosed a system using a plurality of solar energy cells embedded in the trunk lid, the roof, the front hood and along the periphery of the rear window to provide electric power for a fan to draw outside air into the vehicle. This patent also states that the system could run an air conditioner although such latter alternative is not operably described. More recently, U.S. Pat. No. 4,280,330 discloses a battery operated heating and cooling system using a Peltier type of thermoelectric device to provide a heat pump coupled with a blower to circulate air over the device and into the compartment. Although forcing outside air into the vehicle will help in lowering the inside temperature, it will be apparent that such efforts will be minimally acceptable for higher outside air temperatures, for example, temperatures exceeding 100 degrees which are common in the southwest United States. Furthermore, a large volume of untreated air would need be moved to overcome the greenhouse effect in order to begin to bring the internal vehicle temperature into correspondence with outside air temperature. While the heat pump approach described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,280,330 will allow ambient air to be cooled, the system is not energy efficient since it requires electric heating for heat transfer and is further time limited by the available energy in the storage battery.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a cooling system for an automobile passenger compartment which operates without engine power and can cool the interior to the ambient temperature.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a self-powered cooling system which can provide additional electrical energy to a vehicle storage battery.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a solar powered evaporative cooling system for an automobile.